This is not a bombardment, just an FYI: WordPress doesn't require themes. You're free to create whatever template you want if no pre-existing theme fits your specific needs. "Unique layout" is totally doable with a little CSS.

What sgazetti said.

A theme consists of a set of PHP and CSS files that completely and exclusively determine the layout. WP's wiki has a reference on functions that produce the various blog elements, such as the date, the comment link, the post, etc.

Access to the PHP: it doesn't get any more flexible than that.

Oh, and

BOOM

Yep. You can't get more flexible than Wordpress. The set themes are for the novices that will screw things up if they try to edit php. The way to do it is pick one of the millions of published themes that you kinda like to start with (I chose Yaletown), and then hack away at it.

While I'm extremely pro-WP, there is one other blogging platform that gets very little press but looks incredibly powerful: Drupal. I'm subscribed to two blogs using it and sometimes they have features that amaze me and I'm sure Wordpress doesn't do (could do, but doesn't yet). Drupal is particularly suited for multiple users and multiple submitters. It's the only platform on the current market that I'd consider dumping WP for.

What they both said.

So here's how I design for MT:

1. I make my design in Illustrator, caring not for how it will need to be coded.

2. I figure out how to make said design work in html. Once it's all nice and working,

3. I add MT tags where they need to go and hit Publish.

4. I have a drink.

I do not want to start with a theme and then hack it, because I'm stubborn and I want to do things my way - from scratch.

If WordPress can do this, I will be very happy. If it can't, then I'm determined to figure out how to more efficiently work with MT4.

The only real gripe I have with MT4 is that the way the templates are sliced and diced makes it cumbersome to get into each one and make changes. And the interface for the templates is quite idiotic. MT attempts to show you links to only the templates it thinks you'll want to access to from any given template, so if I'm working on, say the Header template, and I want to then make a change to the Main Archive Template, for example, navigating to it take far too long.

I will have to check out this Drupal as well.

Ah, you're a from-scratcher...

WP has templates just like MT does. All I can say is to read this: Wordpress Theme Development

So you're just lazy. ;)

> templates are sliced and diced makes it cumbersome to get into each one and make changes

I'm assuming this "sliced and diced" doesn't mean the templates are split into a header file, a post layout file, a comment layout file, a footer file, etcetera, because these are things that make editing the layout decidely less cumbersome, and enforce consistency.

It's not an issue of laziness. It's an issue of their template interface being cumbersome. If it takes me three or four different clicks/page loads in order to get to the template I need, I'm going to get impatient. Especially when the pages take twice as long to load as the previous version. I feel like I spend more time navigating between templates than actually making changes to them. Laziness is just efficiency given a bad rap.

In retrospect, though, I do feel like I might not be being 100% fair to Movable Type. In MT3, I always link the templates to files so that I can edit them in Dreamweaver, vs. through MT's interface. So I just hit CTRL-SHIFT-U to upload them, and then rebuild. Can't get much faster than that.

Before bashing MT4 too much, I should probably try linking my templates and see if that goes any better.

Bet you all REALLY wanted to know this level of detail about how I work, eh?

Hm, I've never paid any attention to the template interface in WP.

FTP is my friend. :)
FTP built into EditPlus is an even better friend.

But as for pageclicks etc, just Presentation > Theme Editor. That's two clicks. Pick a theme, and start editing the files.

By the way, no rebuilding in WP either.